LCMS Convention Proceedings St. Louis, Missouri — 1979, Page 57

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SEO EES TOE ALS OLLI TON LODE ERAGE ERE ne

a OAR at in ee a tet

Introduction

In the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, a
sincere welcome to you as members of the floor commit-
tees of the 53rd regular convention of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod. Let me say at the outset that I
deeply appreciate your willingness to serve your Lord
and His church in this important capacity. Your sacri-
fice of these days during which you will prepare recom-
mendations to guide the members of over 6,000 congre-
gations in their mission and ministry is truly
appreciated.

Floor committees have a great responsibility toward
the convention and the Synod. Your proposals weigh
heavily on the thinking and decisions of the convention.
Therefore it is incumbent upon you to ask hard ques-
tions, to gather all possible information, and to frame
resolutions which will help the convention to make
informed and intelligent decisions regarding our life
and our walking together. May God’s Holy Spirit give
you wisdom and understanding.

Dr. Herbert Mueller, Secretary of the Synod, will be
reviewing with you the precise duties of floor committees
and the manner in which they are to function. But
before he does, I would like to bring certain matters
before you which I believe deserve special attention.
While action on all reports and overtures is to be taken,
certain priority matters must be dealt with. I would like
to comment on some of the major issues coming before
each floor committee. ,

I. Missions

This convention is to be a mission convention, as the
theme indicates: “God Opens Doors...” We have been
so fortunate in gaining the services of Dr. Oswald
Hoffmann to act as our convention essayist. He has
traveled widely, visited most of the mission fields of the
Synod, and as speaker for the Lutheran Hour has been
engaged in many different ways in “Bringing Christ to
the Nations” over a long and distinguished career.

We will also be blessed in having among us national
representatives and missionaries of nearly all of the
churches which are affiliated in one way or another
with The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod through-
out the world. We will be meeting with and hearing from
them every day of the convention. They can tell us better
than anyone about the challenges and the problems
they encounter as the saving Gospel of Christ spreads
from place to place through the doors God opens.

In this connection I want to report that during my 10
years as president I have had the opportunity to visit
every church affiliated with The Lutheran Church—
Missouri Synod throughout the world except the work in
Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and the Synod of Mexico, which has

57

PRESIDENT’S REPORT
(Part I)

(Part I was read to the joint meeting of the floor committees; Part II, to the convention.)

Dr, J. A. O. Preus, President

invited me to their convention in August. So I will
welcome these overseas people with very great personal
warmth. I consider them not only Lutherans from far-
off lands, but I consider them good friends, colleagues,
and I know them to be dedicated and talented people.

In my travels to these various areas I have had
occasion to meet countless pastors and workers and lay
people; to see hundreds of churches, schools, hospitals,
and other installations; to see the countries in which the
work is going on; and to form some rather firm opinions.
My overall impressions have been enormously positive.
Some very fine work is going on under both missionaries
and over 600 national workers.

Various executives and I have had occasion, through
the meetings of the International Lutheran Conference,
which we have attended in Madras, India; Porto Alegre,
Brazil; and Papua New Guinea, to recognize that the
theological position of these churches is soundly Bibli-
cal and Lutheran. We need to remember that we our-
selves, as people of European ancestry largely, come out
of a heritage of nearly 2,000 years of Christianity and
450 years of Lutheranism. Many of these churches are
carrying on their work under the leadership of first-
generation Christians. In some cases the work is being
carried on under unbelievably difficult circumstances
in which these church workers are facing secularism,
humanism, poverty, nationalism, atheism, a multitude
of non-Christian—and in some instances agressively
anti-Christian—religions, cultures which are vastly dif-
ferent from our Western culture, and many other factors
in comparison with what we often think of as normative
Christian Missouri Synod Lutheranism.